Tina Dupuy: They may fly a banner of the tea party Gadsden Flag with a snake coiled ready to attack but their snake would be more accurately depicted as eating itself. When Republicans get what they want then they no longer want that—they want something else!!

Tina Dupuy: Our first woman president, that person who believed as a little girl her country could be better for all women everywhere, will at some point in her presidency be called an ugly, unattractive, nut-cracking, ball-busting, bunny boiling, castrating, emotional, crazy, weeping, bewildered, menopausal, menstruating, angry, excitable, hysteric hag.

Tina Dupuy: O’Reilly’s whole schtick has been to insult journalists and spread distrust of the media because, according to Bill, they don’t tell the truth. Hypocrisy is one way to spin it. I call it fraud.

Tina Dupuy: Cosby is a complicated villain who made an entire industry complicit in his sex crimes. It’s now clear Bill Cosby, the man, is more fit for a Shakespeare drama than a half-hour situation comedy.

Tina Dupuy: Now we have a legally immune, self-policing, occupying army with a widely acknowledged racial bias loose in our cities. And your personal experience with them is largely based on your income level, age and race.

Tina Dupuy: We’re a nation of mainly Christians but not even really good Christians. We go to church as much as Europeans, we just lie about it more. Churches are closing down and filing for bankruptcy, yet Americans tell pollsters they’re in church every Sunday.

Tina Dupuy: There’s a tendency among those unwilling to accept the idea of institutionalized racism to err on the side of the law and believe police wouldn’t be stopping and arresting black people if they weren’t committing crimes. When you’re in handcuffs everyone looks guilty.

Tina Dupuy: Republicans get to be morally superior. “We’re a nation of laws,” they regurgitate. Unless you’re the company hiring all the cheap labor with little ability to redress grievances, then we’re a nation of turning a blind eye and enjoying the cheap goods and services.

Tina Dupuy: The Pledge is a jingoistic chant created by a children’s publication to celebrate an explorer turned brutal torture-happy tyrant with a Hitler salute. It’s not the best tradition we have in this country.

LGBT Rights

Irene Monroe: Long before June officially became Gay Pride Month, and October “Coming Out Month” for the LGBTQ community, Halloween was unofficially our yearly celebrated “holiday,” dating as far back at the 1970s when it was a massive annual street party in San Francisco’s Castro district.

The Middle East

Richard Greeman: Anti-government demonstrations spread across Morocco after social media spread the story of Mousine Fikri, a fishmonger crushed to death inside a garbage truck as he tried to block the destruction of a truckload of his fish confiscated by police.